Bitwise contends that the crypto industry’s obsession with timing a market bottom overlooks a historical pattern where peak investor anxiety often signals the start of a recovery.
Having navigated the 2018 and 2022 winters, the crypto asset manager suggested the current “anxious feeling” in the market is a trailing indicator of historical recovery zones.
Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan noted that investors who bought the dip during the 2018 nadir saw returns of approximately 2,000%, while those who entered during the 2022 lows are up roughly 300% in just over three years. For those with a long-term horizon, the firm views the current disconnect between price and progress as a repeat of these specific cycles.
The global crypto market has faced a bruising start to 2026, with over $2 trillion in value wiped out since the October 2025 peak. Bitcoin BTC$65,998.81 recently plummeted to a 16-month low near $60,000, a psychological breach that triggered nearly $5.4 billion in leveraged liquidations over a single 72-hour window.
Analysts attributed the carnage to a perfect storm of macro headwinds: the nomination of Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve Chair signaling a hawkish hard money shift, massive outflows from U.S. spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) totaling billions, and a broader de-risking trend that has seen investors flee both digital assets and high-growth tech stocks.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency was trading around $68,800 at publication time.
According to the Friday blog post, the fundamental case for the asset class remains unchanged despite the price action.
Hougan argued that the world is increasingly digital and demands non-fiat currencies, pointing to the ascendancy of stablecoins, the rise of tokenization, and the emergence of prediction markets and “AiFi” as evidence of a maturing ecosystem.
He emphasized that while prices do not currently reflect this progress, Wall Street’s continued integration with blockchain technology suggests that fundamentals will eventually drive the next leg up.
Regarding a potential turnaround, Bitwise acknowledged that crypto bear markets typically end in exhaustion rather than a sudden burst of excitement. However, the asset manager identified several specific triggers that could serve as a catalyst for a recovery.
These include the potential passage of the CLARITY Act, a shift back toward risk-on market sentiment, rising interest rate-cut expectations, and technological breakthroughs at the intersection of AI and crypto. In the absence of a sudden positive shock, Bitwise expects the market to “grind out a bottom,” prescribing a strategy of patience and a focus on the long-term destination.
Read more: Deutsche Bank says bitcoin’s selloff signals a loss of conviction, not a broken market
Eurozone finance ministers will convene on Feb. 16 to deliberate on integrating euro-denominated stablecoins as part of efforts to bolster the euro’s global influence.
Eurozone finance ministers are set to meet on Feb. 16 to explore the integration of euro-denominated stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) to enhance the euro’s global standing, Reuters has learned.
The European Commission is preparing a set of proposals aimed at strengthening the euro’s role in the international monetary system. These proposals are expected to include the issuance of euro-denominated stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and CBDCs.
Currently, the euro accounts for approximately 20% of global currency reserves, compared to about 60% for the U.S. dollar, the report reads.
Despite this significant presence, euro-denominated instruments make up less than 1% of the stablecoin market, which is predominantly dominated by U.S. dollar-pegged assets.
Economic security is a central theme of this meeting. The commission has highlighted the need for the EU to act decisively in strengthening its economic and financial security. This includes proposals for joint EU debt issuance to finance common projects, potentially increasing the euro’s appeal in global financial markets.
As The Defiant reported earlier, analysts at credit rating agency S&P Global anticipate that the growth of euro stablecoins will likely be driven by real-world asset (RWA) tokenization rather than payments.
This article was generated with the assistance of AI workflows.
Bitfarms (BITF) is moving its legal base from Canada to the United States and will rebrand as Keel Infrastructure as part of its pivot from bitcoin mining BTC$65,998.81 to data center development for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) workloads.
The redomiciling process, announced in a Friday press release, will be subject to shareholder, regulatory and court approvals. A shareholder vote is scheduled for March 20, and if approved, the company expects the transition to close by April 1. The new parent company, to be incorporated in Delaware, will trade on the Nasdaq and Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol KEEL.
Bitfarms’ stock rose 18% following the news, erasing Thursday’s 16% tumble as AI infrastructure and crypto stocks sold off.
The rebrand and relocation follow a year-long strategic review by Bitfarms, which assessed market trends and investor sentiment, CEO Ben Gagnon said. The U.S. move will help the company access a broader pool of capital, simplify its corporate structure, and position it more directly in front of institutional investors, he added.
“We are no longer a Bitcoin company,” Gagnon said in a statement, “We are an infrastructure-first owner and developer for HPC/AI data centers across North America.
To support its new focus, Bitfarms has begun repaying its $300 million credit facility from Macquarie Group, starting with $100 million tied to its Panther Creek site in Pennsylvania. The repayment reduces debt while preserving what the company says is a strong liquidity position — $698 million as of Feb. 5 — comprised largely of cash and bitcoin.
Following the move, Bitfarms will maintain its operational sites in Canada and the U.S., but its New York City office will become its sole headquarters.
Bitcoin’s long-term investment case relative to gold has strengthened, according to JPMorgan, even as the cryptocurrency suffers one of the sharpest market pullbacks in its history.
In a new note, JPMorgan analysts reportedly said Bitcoin’s risk-adjusted profile versus gold has improved after gold’s strong outperformance over the past year and a notable rise in volatility for the traditional safe-haven asset.
The divergence between the two assets has been stark. Since October 2025, gold has climbed roughly a third, while BTC has fallen nearly 50% from its peak above $126,000.
The downturn marks four consecutive months of declines — a stretch not seen since before the pandemic. Gold rose more than 60% in 2025, driven by central bank buying and renewed safe-haven demand, while BTC struggled to maintain momentum and underperformed many risk assets.
Still, JPMorgan global markets strategist Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou argued that gold’s rally has come with a key shift: rising volatility.
That has narrowed the perceived risk gap between the metal and BTC.
The bank highlighted that Bitcoin’s volatility relative to gold has fallen to a record low, with the bitcoin-to-gold volatility ratio drifting toward 1.5.
Panigirtzoglou suggested that, on a volatility-adjusted basis, Bitcoin’s market capitalization would need to rise dramatically — theoretically implying a price near $266,000 — to match private sector investment levels in gold.
While he acknowledged such targets are unrealistic in the near term, the comparison underscores what JPMorgan views as significant upside potential over the long run once negative sentiment fades.
Bitcoin is currently crashing
The note comes as Bitcoin’s price crashed sharply Thursday, dipping to $65,000 in volatile trading — marking what appears to be the largest absolute dollar drawdown on record.
From its October highs, BTC has retraced roughly $62,000, eclipsing prior nominal declines seen in 2018 and 2022, according to Bitcoin Magazine Pro data.
JPMorgan also pointed out that BTC is now trading well below its estimated production cost of $87,000 — historically seen as a soft floor.
Analysts noted that sustained prices under production cost could force inefficient miners out, eventually lowering the network’s marginal cost base.
Despite the downturn, JPMorgan said liquidation activity has remained modest compared with past crashes, though U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs continue to see persistent outflows.
U.S. spot BTC ETFs saw more than $3 billion exit last month, following around $2 billion in December and $7 billion in November, the report added.
At the time of writing, BTC is trading near $66,000.
While crypto natives lament Bitcoin’s underperformance compared to precious metals, institutional traders are eyeing the digital asset.
On one of BTC’s worst days in recent memory, JP Morgan’s quantitative strategist Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou is taking the contrarian approach and says that not only is Bitcoin undervalued, but it looks “even more attractive compared to gold.”
Panigitzoglou says that liquidations have been “more modest” despite the asset’s poor recent performance, and highlighted that the bitcoin-to-gold volatility ratio is at a “record low” in a recent investor research note, according to Yahoo Finance.
However, BTC is currently down 13.3% today compared to gold’s 3% decline, so that ratio gap is closing quickly.
Bitcoin’s stark underperformance relative to gold continues a trend that began when the new U.S. administration took office in January 2025. Gold is up 80% since Trump entered office, while BTC is down 37% over the same period.
BTC vs Gold Jan 2024 – Present – TradingView
While retail crypto traders have struggled to reconcile gold’s outperformance, Bitcoin analyst Willy Woo cites several reasons, including quantum computing threats and the marginal buyers in each asset class.
On Jan. 25, Woo said, “It’s really hard to convince sovereigns and fiduciary institutions to buy a nascent asset like BTC with 17 years of history (which is less than a retail home mortgage). Then think about their perspective on quantum uncertainty over the next 5-15 years.”
Revolut Business has announced the launch of a new ‘Subscriptions’ feature in the UK, designed to help merchants manage recurring billing directly within the platform and eliminate the need for separate, costly subscription software.
The new tool marks a strategic evolution for the fintech, moving beyond simple payment processing to become a “full revenue operations partner” for its business clients.
Consolidating the payment stack
Alex Codina, general manager – merchant acquiring at Revolut Business
The launch addresses a frequent pain point for modern merchants: the fragmentation of financial operations. managing subscription models often requires businesses to juggle multiple platforms—one for payments, another for billing and subscriber management. This disconnect can lead to complex manual reconciliation, increased failed payments, and ultimately, higher customer churn.
Revolut Business aims to solve this by consolidating payments and customer details into a single unified platform. The Subscriptions tool allows merchants to build, automate, and optimise subscription plans either directly in-app or via API.
Key features include the ability to offer bespoke plans and free trials, as well as automated digital reminders to help capture missed revenue and boost collection rates. Crucially, Revolut is offering this capability without additional billing software fees, positioning it as a cost-effective alternative to standalone SaaS billing solutions.
Alex Codina, general manager of acquiring at Revolut, commented: “Subscription revenue is the backbone of many modern businesses, but our customers were tired of juggling multiple software tools and high manual input just to manage recurring payments. We listened, and built a solution that simplifies the entire journey. By integrating robust subscription management with existing payment processing capabilities, we’re moving beyond simple payment acceptance and giving merchants a 360 view of their customers.”
A billion-dollar business
The move strengthens Revolut Business’s bid to become an “all-in-one” financial platform for scale-ups and enterprises. It follows a strong period of growth for the B2B arm of the super-app, which announced earlier this year that it had hit $1
billion in annualised revenue.
By bringing revenue operations in-house, Revolut is betting that businesses will prefer a vertically integrated financial stack over a patchwork of third-party tools.
Wall Street bank Citigroup is dialing back expectations for Coinbase (COIN) amid a risk-off mood gripping markets.
In a Friday note to clients, the bank’s analysts lowered their price target on the crypto exchange to $400 from $505, citing weaker trading volumes, softer institutional activity and ongoing uncertainty around the timing of U.S. crypto legislation.
The new $400 price target still represents more than a doubling in price from COIN’s close last night of $146. The same analyst team lifted its price target on COIN to $505 in July 2025 as the stock was hitting a record high near $450.
Shares are up 6% in pre-market action on Friday as crypto markets recover a bit from Thursday’s crash that saw bitcoin plunge all the way to $60,000.
Despite the near-term reset, the firm reiterated its buy/high risk rating, calling Coinbase the category leader and a prime beneficiary of eventual crypto reform. Progress on CLARITY, Citi said, remains the key catalyst for reviving the stock’s momentum.
The bank now expects Senate negotiations over the market structure bill to stretch beyond 2026, even as groundwork continues.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said his firm had pulled support for a sweeping digital assets bill after finding provisions that could have harmed consumers and stifled competition.
The bill has repeatedly lost steam as crypto and banking lobbyists clash over stablecoin yield, while lawmakers from both parties remain deadlocked on several other provisions.
Marking current crypto prices to market, analysts led by Peter Christiansen cut their near-term forecasts, trimming Coinbase fourth-quarter 2025 net revenue by roughly 10% to $1.69 billion, about 4% below consensus.
After factoring in a $2.3 billion mark-to-market decline on crypto holdings and Coinbase’s equity stake in Circle (CRCL), the analysts now forecast a fourth-quarter GAAP EPS loss of $2.64.
Coinbase will release fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results after the close on February 12.
Read more: Citi says CLARITY Act momentum builds, but DeFi fight could stall crypto bill
Ripple and XRPL contributors have outlined a growing set of “institutional DeFi” building blocks on the XRP Ledger that aim to make the network viable for regulated financial activity, per a Thursday blog.
XRP’s utility as a settlement and bridge asset is being highlighted as central to that infrastructure, with usecases ranging from from forex and stablecoin rails to tokenized collateral and native lending markets.
The latest roadmap emphasizes features already live — such as multi-purpose token standards (MPT), permissioned domains with compliance tooling, credential-backed access and batch transactions — alongside upcoming releases that extend XRPL into credit markets and privacy-preserving workflows.
Unlike many smart contract chains that bolt on compliance after the fact, XRPL’s approach has been to embed identity and control primitives at the protocol layer.
Permissioned domains and credentials allow markets to gate participation by verified entities, a requirement institutions often cite as a barrier to onchain integration.
On the payments and FX side, XRP’s role as an auto-bridge between assets continues to be cited as a demand driver, with stablecoin corridors and remittance flows adding to onchain volume and fee activity. Token escrows and object reserves denominated in XRP further tie network usage back to the native asset.
Looking ahead, the introduction of XLS-65/66 — the XRPL lending protocol — is slated to offer pooled and underwritten credit on ledger without entirely offloading risk logic onchain.
Single asset vaults, fixed-term lending and optional permissioning tools are designed to feel familiar to institutional risk managers while operating in an onchain settlement context.
Privacy features like confidential transfers for MPTs, arriving in the first quarter, aim to satisfy enterprise and regulatory expectations around transaction-level anonymity and controlled disclosure.
Critics have long pointed to XRPL’s lack of EVM-style programmability as a hindrance. The new EVM sidechain — bridged via the Axelar network — is meant to address this by letting Solidity developers tap into XRPL liquidity and identity features while accessing familiar tooling.
XRP prices are down 22% over the past seven days, in line with a broader market drop.
Privacy coins are just a step in a broader laundering pipeline after hacks. They serve as a temporary black box to disrupt traceability.
Hackers typically move funds through consolidation, obfuscation and chain hopping and only then introduce privacy layers before attempting to cash out.
Privacy coins are most useful immediately after a hack because they reduce onchain visibility, delay blacklisting and help break attribution links.
Enforcement actions against mixers and other laundering tools often shift illicit flows toward alternative routes, including privacy coins.
After crypto hacks occur, scammers often move stolen funds through privacy-focused cryptocurrencies. While this has created a perception of hackers preferring privacy coins, these assets function as a specialized “black box” within a larger laundering pipeline. To understand why privacy coins show up after hacks, you need to take into account the process of crypto laundering.
This article explores how funds move post-hack and what makes privacy coins so useful for scammers. It examines emerging laundering methods, limitations of privacy coins like Monero (XMR) and Zcash (ZEC) as laundering tools, legitimate uses of privacy technologies and why regulators need to balance innovation with the need to curb laundering.
How funds flow after a hack
Following a hack, scammers don’t usually send stolen assets directly to an exchange for immediate liquidation; instead, they follow a deliberate, multi-stage process to obscure the trail and slow down the inquiry:
Consolidation: Funds from multiple victim addresses are transferred to a smaller number of wallets.
Obfuscation: Assets are shuffled through chains of intermediary crypto wallets, often with the help of crypto mixers.
Chain-hopping: Funds are bridged or swapped to different blockchains, breaking continuity within any single network’s tracking tools.
Privacy layer: A portion of funds is converted into privacy-focused assets or routed through privacy-preserving protocols.
Cash-out: Assets are eventually exchanged for more liquid cryptocurrencies or fiat through centralized exchanges, over-the-counter (OTC) desks or peer-to-peer (P2P) channels.
Privacy coins usually enter the stage in steps four or five, blurring the traceability of lost funds even more after earlier steps have already complicated the onchain history.
Why privacy coins are attractive for scammers right after a hack
Privacy coins offer specific advantages right at the time when scammers are most vulnerable, immediately after the theft.
Reduced onchain visibility
Unlike transparent blockchains, where the sender and receiver and transaction amounts remain fully auditable, privacy-focused systems deliberately hide these details. Once funds move into such networks, standard blockchain analytics lose much of their efficacy.
In the aftermath of the theft, scammers try to delay identification or evade automated address blacklisting by exchanges and services. The sudden drop in visibility is particularly valuable in the critical days after theft when monitoring is most intense.
Breaking attribution chains
Scammers tend not to move directly from hacked assets into privacy coins. They typically use multiple techniques, swaps, cross-chain bridges and intermediary wallets before introducing a privacy layer.
This multi-step approach makes it significantly harder to connect the final output back to the original hack. Privacy coins act more as a strategic firebreak in the attribution process than as a standalone laundering tool.
Negotiating power in OTC and P2P markets
Many laundering paths involve informal OTC brokers or P2P traders who operate outside extensively regulated exchanges.
Using privacy-enhanced assets reduces the information counterparties have about the funds’ origin. This can simplify negotiations, lower the perceived risk of mid-transaction freezes and improve the attacker’s leverage in less transparent markets.
Did you know? Several early ransomware groups originally demanded payment in Bitcoin (BTC) but later switched to privacy coins only after exchanges began cooperating more closely with law enforcement on address blacklisting.
The mixer squeeze and evolving methods of laundering
One reason privacy coins appear more frequently in specific time frames is enforcement pressure on other laundering tools. When law enforcement targets particular mixers, bridges or high-risk exchanges, illicit funds simply move to other channels. This shift results in the diversification of laundering routes across various blockchains, swapping platforms and privacy-focused networks.
When scammers perceive one laundering route as risky, alternative routes experience higher volumes. Privacy coins gain from this dynamic, as they offer inherent transaction obfuscation, independent of third-party services.
Limitations of privacy coins as a laundering tool
Privacy features notwithstanding, most large-scale hacks still involve extensive use of BTC, Ether (ETH) and stablecoins at later stages. The reason is straightforward: Liquidity and exit options are important.
Privacy coins generally exhibit:
These factors complicate the conversion of substantial amounts of crypto to fiat currency without drawing scrutiny. Therefore, scammers use privacy coins briefly before reverting to more liquid assets prior to final withdrawal.
Successful laundering involves integration of privacy-enhancing tools with high-liquidity assets, tailored to each phase of the process.
Did you know? Some darknet marketplaces now list prices in Monero by default, even if they still accept Bitcoin, because vendors prefer not to reveal their income patterns or customer volume.
Behavioral trends in asset laundering
While tactical specifics vary, blockchain analysts generally identify several high-level “red flags” in illicit fund flows:
Layering and consolidation: Rapid dispersal of assets across a vast network of wallets, followed by strategic reaggregation to simplify the final exit.
Chain hopping: Moving assets across multiple blockchains to break the deterministic link of a single ledger, often sandwiching privacy-enhancing protocols.
Strategic latency: Allowing funds to remain dormant for extended periods to bypass the window of heightened public and regulatory scrutiny.
Direct-to-fiat workarounds: Preferring OTC brokers for the final liquidation to avoid the robust monitoring systems of major exchanges.
Hybrid privacy: Using privacy-centric coins as a specialized tool within a broader laundering strategy, rather than as a total replacement for mainstream assets.
Contours of anonymity: Why traceability persists
Despite the hurdles created by privacy-preserving technologies, investigators continue to secure wins by targeting the edges of the ecosystem. Progress is typically made through:
Regulated gateways: Forcing interactions with exchanges that mandate rigorous identity verification
Human networks: Targeting the physical infrastructure of money-mule syndicates and OTC desks
Off-chain intelligence: Leveraging traditional surveillance, confidential informants and Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs)
Operational friction: Exploiting mistakes made by the perpetrator that link their digital footprint to a real-world identity.
Privacy coins increase the complexity and cost of an investigation, but they cannot fully insulate scammers from the combined pressure of forensic analysis and traditional law enforcement.
Did you know? Blockchain analytics firms often focus less on privacy coins themselves and more on tracing how funds enter and exit them since those boundary points offer the most reliable investigative signals.
Reality of legitimate use for privacy-enhancing technologies
It is essential to distinguish between the technology itself and its potential criminal applications. Privacy-focused financial tools, such as certain cryptocurrencies or mixers, serve valid purposes, including:
Safeguarding the confidentiality of commercial transactions, which includes protecting trade secrets or competitive business dealings
Shielding individuals from surveillance or monitoring in hostile environments
Reducing the risk of targeted theft by limiting public visibility of personal wealth.
Regulatory scrutiny isn’t triggered by the mere existence of privacy features, but when they are used for illicit activity, such as ransomware payments, hacking proceeds, sanctions evasion or darknet marketplaces.
This key distinction makes effective policymaking difficult. Broad prohibitions risk curtailing lawful financial privacy for ordinary users and businesses while often failing to halt criminal networks that shift to alternative methods.
Balancing act of regulators
For cryptocurrency exchanges, the recurring appearance of privacy coins in post-hack laundering flows intensifies the need to:
Enhance transaction monitoring and risk assessment
Reduce exposure to high-risk inflows
Strengthen compliance with cross-border Travel Rule requirements and other jurisdictional standards.
For policymakers, it underscores a persistent challenge: Criminal actors adapt more quickly than rigid regulations can evolve. Efforts to crack down on one tool often displace activity to others, turning money laundering into a dynamic, moving target rather than a problem that can be fully eradicated.
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Simon Gerovich, CEO of Metaplanet (3350), doubled down on the company’s bitcoin buying strategy even as shares in Asia’s largest publicly traded holder of the cryptocurrency fell.
In a Friday post on X, Gerovich said Metaplanet would “steadily continue to accumulate bitcoin, expand revenue and prepare for the next phase of growth.” He thanked shareholders who continued to back the company despite bitcoin’s downward trend: The largest cryptocurrency has lost more than 47% of its value since touching a record high in October and fell 14% on Thursday alone.
Metaplanet’s stock has struggled alongside bitcoin, ending the week at 340 yen ($2.16) after falling roughly 82% from a high of 1,930 yen in June. On Friday, the stock fell 5.6% following bitcoin’s slump after Asian trading hours the day before.
The Tokyo-based company’s “555 Million Plan” aims to reach 100,000 BTC by the end of 2026 and 210,000 BTC by 2027. Its bitcoin holdings have climbed from 1,762 BTC at the end of 2024 to 35,102 BTC now, worth about $2.5 billion at current prices.
The investment is deep in the red, with an average acquisition cost of about $107,000 per bitcoin, according to its analytics page, and a current price of $66,270. The company has roughly $280 million in outstanding debt, according to the dashboard.
Globally, Metaplanet ranks as the fourth-largest publicly traded holder of bitcoin. Strategy Inc. (MSTR) ranks first with 713,502 BTC, MARA Holdings (MARA) is second with 53,250 BTC and Twenty One Capital (XX1) is third with 43,514 BTC, according to bitcointreasuries.net.
Metaplanet announced Jan. 29 that it planned to raise up to 21 billion yen to fund additional bitcoin purchases and pay down debt. It plans to raise the funds through the sale of 24.53 million new common shares at 499 yen each, along with stock warrants aimed at select investors.
